A high level Hungarian delegation comprising government officials and the Leadership of Hungary Helps, a Humanitarian Programme of the Hungarian Government have inspected an ongoing school project at Koforidua in Ghana’s Eastern Region.
The delegation of 12 led by Honourable Tristan Azbej, the State Secretary at the State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and for the Hungary Helps Programme has applauded the Management of the Newill Academy School for what he describes as an impressive progress made so far on the 25,000 USD supported project by the good people of Hungary.
He assured the school’s management of the continuous support and monitoring by his outfit to ensure the aims and objectives of investing into the school is achieved with the needed social impact to the community.
The Hungary Helps Programme (HHP) is the Hungarian Government’s framework programme for bilateral international humanitarian assistance and development cooperation, coordinated by the Prime Minister’s Office State Secretariat aimed to provide humanitarian assistance directly on-the-ground to communities across the world.
Background about the Newill Academy School Project
The Newill Academy School project which is expected to be completed by the end of December 2021, started in 2010 when Mr. William Newman, a Ghanaian teacher founded a nursery in an empty storage building next to his mother’s house in the Juaben Municipality in Koforidua in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
According to Mr. Newman’s accounts, his aim was to provide quality daycare and education for children who suffer social injustice in the area, mainly the children of the market sellers and street vendors who can not afford to stay at home with them.
Since then, the management of the school and teachers have been working hard to provide the best for the pupils from very deprived communities with difficult financial challenges to go to school.
In spite of the challenges faced by the school including overcrowding in the classrooms and bad sanitary conditions, the school today has seen remarkable improvement in terms of infrastructure.
The children who used to be studying under temporary shelter-like structures exposed to the various weather conditions can now comfortably study in a decent environment through the aid of Hungarian Government and good people.
It is recalled that a group of European architects in close cooperation with the local management revised plans in 2016 to start construction works of the low-cost sustainable school building. During the first building phase in 2016 two classrooms and a sanitary block were completed and the walls of two additional classrooms had been raised. These semi-finished classrooms were already in use during the 2016/17 school year, providing better environment for studying until an opportunity arose to help Newill Academy with the construction of a more appropriate school building.
In August 2017, through the help of some volunteers, the school completed the floor slab above the classrooms, added a staircase, erected the walls of the first floor classrooms and harvested and prepared bamboo for the facade. Two more building phases followed in the to be completed to provide comfortable and suitable room for about 240 pupils.
The Newill School project was awarded by the Media Architecture Prize 2016, one of the most significant prizes of contemporary architecture in Hungary.
The Association of Hungarian Architects selected the project to participate in the Exhibition of Young Architect Generation.
The school currently has a total of pupil population of 189 from creche to class six, about 20 teaching and non teaching staff and Mrs. Evelyn Asantewaa as the current Headmistress.
Mr. Bogdan Funk, a Hungarian and the School’s Development Coordinator who shared some insights about the progress of the project assured the Delegation of completing the project by the end of the year ending 2021 in spite of the challenges faced by the school.
The Hungarian Government delegation led by the State Secretary Hon. Tristan Azbej included Ms. Cecilia Bardos, Head of Secretariat, Ms. Eszter Rebeka Jozsa, Personal Assistant, Mr. Zoltan Fodor, Chief Adviser at the Secretariat.
The Hungary Helps Agency conprised of its Director General Mr. Peter Kovacs- Pifka, Dr. Amos Palvolgyi, Project Director and Mr. Peter Zelei a Project Manager of the Humanitarian Agency.
The Embassy of Hungary in Accra was led by His Excellency the Ambassador of Hungary to Ghana, Mr. Andras Szabo, Deputy Head of Mission, Mr. David Bekesi and the Economic Counsellor, Mr Tamas Ary.
Mr. Andras Novak and Laszlo Markos are part of the Hungarian Press covering the visit to the project site for the Hungarian ATV channel.
